Alice
by Scarlett Masquerade
Summary: Expounding on what James mentioned about Alice's past.
1. Chapter 1

Allan strolled into the last room on the hallway, followed closely by the greasy little wigmaker. The little handwritten sign on the door spelled "Alice" in spidery writing. They weren't sure what her last name was, as she'd been left on the steps to the asylum, unconscious and covered in bruises.

The girl inside was sitting cross-legged on the bed, her head bowed, shiny curtains of ebony hair falling down on either side of her face.

"Beautiful," the wigmaker rasped, fingering a chunk of this hair between his hands. His large, rusty scissors snipped across it with a sound much like his voice until he had left Alice's head covered in a choppy black fuzz.

"Thank you, little girl," he said, laughing, before slinking out of the room.

"Here you are, Alice,"Allan said brightly, slipping her a small toffee. It sat in her hand, an odd splash of color amid the desaturated scene. She made no attempt to unwrap it and bring it to her mouth.

Allan looked down at her sadly, his hand brushing briefly against her shoulder. He loved that little girl so much. It was a terrible waste for her to sit in here, dying slowly.

She shivered away from his icy touch, rubbing her shoulder convulsively.

"Goodnight, Alice," he said, taking in one last long breath of air saturated with her beautiful scent and shutting the door quietly behind him.

He jumped slightly as a more solid shadow detached itself from the dark walls of the hall. A white face as pale and cold as Allan's own, but with blood red eyes burning from the deep-sunk sockets.

"You know what I want, Allan," he snarled, putting his face very close to Allan's.

"Yes, James, but I'm afraid-"

"You should be! I want her and I will have her. I'm tired of waiting. You give her to me tonight or I _swear _I will expose us all!"

With that, he whipped around in a swirl of black cloak and ran down the hallway, faster than a human eye could see.

- - -

Allan dithered for a moment, swaying back and forth on the spot. Finally, swearing furiously at James under his breath, he slid back into Alice's room.

She was asleep, curled sideways with her back facing the door. He found himself missing the silken hair that would spread over the pillow, glittering subtly.

"Alice, dear," he whispered, touching her shoulder gently. "Alice, wake up."

She jerked awake, staring blankly up at Allan.

"Come with me, darling. We need to go."

He thought he saw a flash of white pass by the barred window, But he couldn't be sure.

Either way, he would need to do this fast.

Alice didn't react to his words, so he scooped her up like a baby and pressed a firm hand over her mouth when she opened it to scream. Her eyes grew wide and frightened as she struggled in the iron cage of his arms.

Allan ran down the hall at top speed, making Alice thrash about even more out of fear. Her teeth scrabbled against his hand, but of course they had no painful effects.

"Hush, honey. We're here," he said as he laid her down in a little alcove that held a few large waste bins.

Alice opened her mouth to snarl at him, but stopped midway. Her blue eyes rolled up slowly to gaze at the night sky, the round silver moon and sparkling stars reflected in them.

"It's very bright," she said softly. Allan was surprised at how low and musical her voice was when she wasn't screaming or sobbing.

"Yes. That's the moon there," Allan pointed to the glowing sphere suspended in the sky, "and those little ones are stars."

"I like them," she said, twirling her hand above her head as if the stars were flowing through her fingers. "I wish I could... touch them."

"Alice, I'm going to need to do something. I want you to stay very still, all right?"

She stiffened, but did not move.

"Something bad is going to happen," she said suddenly, very softly. Her head was up, alert.

"What?"

"I... don't know..." Allan leaned in.

He had meant to go for her neck, but his lips found hers instead. She responded instantly, pressing herself into him and willingly parting her lips for his.

"No," he gasped, pulling away. "No, Alice. I said stay still."

Alice fell back, sulking a bit, but kept her body immobile.

This time his mouth glided along her smooth, pale neck, searching out the strongly pulsing jugular vein. They found it easily, parted--

And his teeth cut into her skin.

Immediately, he was overtaken by the immense need for her blood. It was flooding his mouth with amazing, warm sweetness, and he wanted more. But, with tremendous effort, he pulled himself away and fell panting against the dirty stone wall.

Alice was jerking upon the floor, uttering little cries of pain. Her tiny, doll-like body writhed in ever-more violent spasms as a tear slid down her cheek.

A roar of anger split the night, and James leaped from the top of the wall, landing with a deafening crash on top of Allan.

"You knew I wanted her!" he snarled, baring his teeth. "You knew!"

"I couldn't let you, James," Allan said, quite calmly considering he had a spitting-mad vampire in his face.

"Oh yes, because you love the pathetic little thing. Well, now it's all a waste and you will pay!"

Allan remained still, not putting up a shred of a fight as James began to tear him apart with a sound like screeching metal. He knew he had to protect Alice at all costs.

"No!" Alice managed to scream hoarsely, trying to overcome the burning pain that was lancing through her veins long enough to reach Allan. But it was far too late. James had torn him into unrecognizable, twisted bits.

"No, no, no..." Alice sobbed. "Stop, please stop..." James laughed, pulling a matchbook from his pocket.

"Aw, did you love him too? What a tragedy. You could have saved him, you know. If you had just given yourself up to me..." He sighed theatrically. "You knew what was going to happen, didn't you? And yet you made not a single move to stop it... So it's all your fault, really. And you smelled so good..."

"You can have me!" Alice said desperately, reaching out a hand. James laughed derisively and kicked it away. It broke with a snap, only to be mended moments later by the vampire venom coursing painfully through her system.

"Too late, little girl. You've already been polluted. But I do hope you enjoy immortality. Your little talent will surely be very useful."

He lit the match dramatically and let it go, speeding away so quickly that he was long gone before the match even hit the ground.

The single flame drifted ever-so-slowly to the ground, catching onto Allan's remains in the blink of an eye. They flared up rapidly, sending a sickly-sweet scent through the still night air.

But slowly, even the bright flames faded from Alice's vision as the venom did its work, sending her spiraling into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

The blackness was soon replaced with a blazing pain that sent screams tearing from Alice's raw throat, a pain that seared, fire-like, through every vein. She must be dying, she thought, had to be...

When she fell back into an uneasy faint she thought for sure, it was all over.

But then the fiery pain dragged her awake again...

So it was hell, then. She had done something terrible, and now she would be burned forever in hell.

She started to sob, but hardly any tears would leave her eyes, which seemed strangely dry. She fainted and reawakened several times before she dared to hope that the pain was receding. Was it, slowly but surely, slipping from her veins? It seemed so, but she didn't dare to hope...

Yes. Yes, it was gone. She laid limp with relief on the wet stone, still crumpled behind the trash bins. How long had she been here? She opened her eyes cautiously.

Everything was amazingly bright and clear. The sun sparkled enchantingly off the edges of the metal trash bins and in the puddles on the ground. She could hear every tiny sound from the street, smell millions of scents that made her throat burn with longing.

Alice cautiously lifted her head, noticing a wet pile of ashes sitting sadly in the corner. The smell coming from them made her wrinkle her nose, and brought a brief, blurry rush of memory. Fire... and anger...

She sat up, shaking the memory from her head. Why linger on painful things, only half-remembered anyhow, when there was so much around her that was real and clear? Besides, she was hungry. And thirsty.

It was the oddest feeling, a burning thirst in her throat mixed with a growling hunger in the pit of her stomach. All those scents she had noticed when she first woke up smelled even more enticing now that she had recovered herself.

Alice stood up in a movement quick and fluid like a snake's, frightening herself in the process. She fell back onto the ground with a soft _flump_.

Standing up more slowly this time, she edged out from the alley. Her movements were still fast and foreign to her, but she supposed that was just because she had been lying on the ground for so long.

The burning sensation in Alice's throat returned with a fury as she inhaled deeply. Not pausing to decipher the medley of mouthwatering scents, she reached out and snatched the first person who came by.

"Wha-" he started, the indignant look starting in his eyes quickly turning to fear when Alice jerked him closer with a strength that surprised her. Letting her instincts move her along, she lunged for his neck where the sweet, warm scent was strongest. Her teeth broke the skin and she drank the hot red liquid that came pouring out, full of relief.

When the man was drained of blood, pasty white and empty-looking, she dropped him unceremoniously on the floor, kicking him back into deeper shadow. The fire in her throat and the scraping pain in her stomach had receded to a dull ache, barely noticeable.

Alice slipped into the stream of morning walkers, noting with interest the way they shuddered instinctively away from her thin body. A few wrinkled their noses- the better-dressed ones- no doubt noticing her ragged gray dress, cropped hair, and bare feet. She would have to do something about that.

Suddenly, a face filled her vision with such force that it sent her reeling against a wall. The feelings connected with the face were overwhelmingly strong, stronger even then the powerful thirst that even now lingered in the back of her mind.

The face was stark white and beautiful, with deep burgundy eyes staring from above gray shadows. Golden hair fell in dirty straggles around the angles of his features, stopping at his jaw. He was much more familiar to her than the faces around her, those warm, pink, fragile faces. He wasn't breakable at all, nor did he make the thirst flare up inside her. Alice had to find him. The compulsion was much more important than the need to feed. She knew immediately that she would willingly starve herself for just one more glance.

She set off purposefully, going much too fast to seem normal amid the fragile beings around her. Ignoring them entirely, she launched herself onto the roof of the nearest building and began to run, blurring into the dawn sky.

_**Constructive criticism would be appreciated. I wasn't planning to continue this story, but then I read it over again and I just had to…**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Jasper**

It had been nearly a month since he left Charlotte and Peter, a month of wandering aimlessly from place to place. He was somewhere in suburban North Carolina at the moment. The houses, all painted some variant of beige with the same floor plan repeated over and over, were still; it was the middle of the night. His pale skin glowed in the darkness, his black eyes looking like dark holes in his face.

These dark eyes stared intently into a window, watching the form that lay under the sheets of a blue bed breathe slowly, the chest moving up and down, up and down. Jasper crept a little closer.

The window was on the second floor, but Jasper easily jumped to the windowsill from a standstill. Balancing precariously for the moment that it took to slide the window up, he then fell silently to the wood floor and was next to the bed in a flash.

With another lightning-fast movement, he slammed his hand over the sleeping figure's mouth and plunged his own mouth to the man's neck. The man had barely even opened his eyes before Jasper's teeth broke the skin of his neck.

Within another minute, he was dead, and Jasper threw him over his own shoulder before jumping back out the window, dumping the body in a shrub on his way out of the neighborhood.

**Alice**

The compulsion she had first felt in that street in upstate New York was still there, sitting in her mind right next to the new awareness of her thirst. Going by the occasional flashes of locations or faces, she had been to Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Virginia before the next flash brought an image of a small diner in the southern part of North Carolina. Discarding the drained woman in her arms (the vision had interrupted her mid-meal), she stood up excitedly with one of those fast movements she still hadn't quite gotten used to, and she set off running south. It would take a day or so to get there, she knew... hopefully she wouldn't get there too late this time.

_two days later_

Cross-legged on the ground with dirty water soaking through her skirt, Alice cradled the broken, bloody little body in her arms and cried. For the first time, she felt disgusted with herself. The terrified expression on the little boy's face when she had grabbed him roughly by the arm (a snap echoing through the air where she suspected it had broken) and pressed her mouth to his neck floated in front of her eyes, an imprint she couldn't erase. His scream still rang in her ears.

Even worse, though she knew how terrible the things she had done were, she still wanted more. She could feel the last dregs of blood in the boy's rapidly cooling body, and she wanted them. But she laid the boy tenderly aside and ran away, as fast and far as she could.

It was a while before Alice realized she had passed her destination, and wheeled around. She stopped running well before she made it into the town, and slipped into the diner almost unnoticed.

She ordered a lemonade that she wouldn't drink (terrifying the waiter with her frightening black eyes in the process) and glanced at the clock. She had about an hour before he arrived.

She could barely contain the excitement that bubbled up inside her. She was here! She couldn't miss him! He was going to be here, just sixty more minutes...


	4. Chapter 4

Jasper drifted into the tiny diner near where the suburbs bled into the sticks. There weren't many people there, only an old couple in the far booth, and a snowy-pale girl with short, inky-black hair--

She turned from where she had been watching the clock, and he fell back in shock.

She was a vampire, too. It was unmistakable in the perfect planes of her face, the bruiselike shadows under her black eyes, the quickness with which she moved.

A huge smile split her face, and she launched herself across the diner to throw her arms around his neck.

"I've been waiting for you. I'm Alice. You're Jasper."

"Yes..." he said slowly, mystified. He pushed her back to arm's-length and stared at her. Alice looked slightly crestfallen, clearly expecting a better reception. She gazed right back at him, not seeming fazed as most vampires were as she took in the countless half-moon scars. Her tiny hand came up slowly to trace one just over his left eye.

A powerful shock surged through him, originating from the place where her hand had met his skin, and he realized how right this was. However strange it seemed, it was _right._

Jasper pulled her back in, pressing her to his chest. He'd found her.

_**I think this'll be the end.**_


End file.
